


Displacement

by TulipFluff



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Gen, Memory Alteration, Mind Manipulation, POV Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Pre-Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TulipFluff/pseuds/TulipFluff
Summary: Naminé sees a ghost of a girl in Marluxia's broken memories and weaves a new tapestry from the hanging threads of his past. No one is going to rescue Naminé so she does so herself.
Relationships: Marluxia & Naminé (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Displacement

“What is your favorite memory of us, Marluxia?” asks Naminé, smiling.

It is Marluxia’s turn to watch her. They are in his private garden, the greenery beautiful compared to the castle’s oppressive white walls or the dark, empty city that lies beyond it. Marluxia has hardly acknowledged her since Xaldin left her in his care. That is fine. It means he does not see the pink crayon hidden in her fist, nor the rough sketch of two figures on her drawing pad.

Marluxia looks up from his gardening. His face is twisted in a scowl, but the severed threads of his mind jump to fill in a gap at the words, _favorite memory_ and images—

- _-a boy, a girl, a room full of flowers, a potted plant changing hands, smiles, love, affection, sister, “I thought you might like these”—_

\--flash by and Naminé grabs at them, scribbling pink hair upon one of the figures and tying a thread to it. She holds her breath.

The scowl freezes on Marluxia’s face and then softens slightly. His eyes look distant and unfocused. “I…”

She takes a red crayon from her box of twenty-four and draws a pot in one figure’s hands, adding spiky leaves with a green crayon.

“I really miss when you would bring me flowers for my room,” says Naminé. Marluxia has never once given her anything, but she takes a yellow crayon and colors hair upon the second, smaller figure’s head. “Remember how pretty my old room was?”

She takes the yellow and colors a sun above their heads. More green scribbles are added around the figures and she picks a blue crayon on a whim to imply flowers growing on vines.

“Your bedroom looked more like greenhouse,” says Marluxia in a daze.

Naminé smiles.

\- - - - -

From the beginning, minds are like tapestries to her. She spends her first days with only Vexen and Zexion for company. They run tests and take notes. Vexen’s mind is cold and orderly, divided in fractal patterns like a snowflake. Zexion’s is shadowy and twists upon itself like an optical illusion if she stares too long. Memories are intangible to her, but she can see them all the same, the way Vexen will look up from his tests and see a small, slate-haired child in the place of his lab partner.

They tell her they—she and them—are Nobodies, those without Hearts and unable to feel emotion. She looks at the tapestry of their minds, still being woven, and knows they are wrong. She can see the split easy, the severed line of thread, but she can see the heal as well.

She thinks little of it but meets other Nobodies as the days pass and Vexen and Zexion tire of their experiments. They declare what the extent of her powers are, and determine they are limited to Sora only. She believes them until she meets Marluxia and sees the scars that tear across his mind.

Vexen and Zexion’s memories bear scars, but Marluxia’s mind is torn asunder. She can’t see everything in a person’s mind all at once. She explained to Zexion that it was more like seeing a hundred tiny images, too small to make out, but adding up to a bigger picture like a mosaic. She can see a beautiful picture in Marluxia’s mind, but the past is shattered, and severed threads hang like vines where another has meddled long before her.

It plants a seed in her own mind.

She pays careful attention to the minds of those who guard her. Lexaeus has a well-ordered mind, as does Axel, Saix, and Xaldin. Xigbar’s mind is ordered but twists upon itself in more disorienting spirals than even Zexion’s. If she were careful, she imagines she could follow the threads of their lives all the way to the beginnings. There is also no room for her meddling. She knows she needs a loose thread, and for Sora, that thread can be Kairi.

Xemnas is a void. She fears him instantly. She fears that she could look too deeply at the deep wound that is his mind and be lost forever to a black hole.

But the other members—Demyx, Luxord, Larxene—they are like Marluxia. She can see their broken pasts, memories left to float in a void. There are severed threads galore for her to grasp at and she can see a phantom image shared amongst them. A ghost of a girl in white.

\- - - - -

Naminé twirls the thread in metaphorical fingers. The girl she is replacing has no name. That was not Naminé’s doing—whoever tore through these minds first, did that—but the result would have been the same, so Naminé does not fret.

She must get away from Xemnas. The black hole of his mind scares her, and she knows there are plans for her soon to be set in motion.

She smiles at Marluxia.

He smiles back.

\- - - - -

Enough damage has been done to their minds that Naminé cannot know their full past. She catches glimpses, occasionally. She weaves together an image of comradery between them, a campsite under the stars, card games between them and a boy with a sitar as the campfire crackles.

She weaves herself into the threads of their minds. Larxene’s acidic bites lose their sting and Demyx and Luxord are always happy to see her. Marluxia is the easiest. She locates the memory that ties their pasts together—a quest for a friend’s lost sister—and uses it as a centerpiece for her escape.

Marluxia, the brother on the hunt for his long-lost sister, his three loyal friends beside him, all missing her as though she were family, too. The cruel Superior who held her captive in a lofty tower, his minions forcing them to bide their time. The moment had come where they can gather and slip away in corridor, a stolen black coat to shield her in the darkness. A joyful reunion. Marluxia placing lilacs in her hands and gardenia in her hair, cheers from everyone as they stand in the forests at night, worlds away from a world that never was.

They are so happy to have finally found her.

She twists the threads in her fingers and makes sure of it.


End file.
